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Stephanie's Reviews > Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way
Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way
by Mayim Bialik, Jay Gordon
by Mayim Bialik, Jay Gordon
** spoiler alert **
i really wanted to give this book 4 or even 5 stars. i am all about the sentiment behind attachment parenting, and mayim bialik is a huge advocate for AP. sure, there are some tenets i'm not terribly down with (the "vaccinations are optional" philosophy doesn't sit well with me), but that's another review for another site. anyway, i thought i'd really enjoy this book. and i did, for the most part. but the natural birthing chapter totally turned me off. it sounded to me as if mayim was advising expectant mothers to ignore "stories" about moms and/or babies who died during natural home births, suggesting that such stories are nothing more than scare tactics to make women believe that you HAVE to give birth in a hospital. it seemed as if she was saying that if you believe it's possible, it will happen. i'll spare you my big long rant about that, but suffice to say that it turned me off to the whole book, to the point that i couldn't finish it. maybe i will at some point, but for now...meh.
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MaryLiz
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rated it 4 stars
Apr 13, 2012 05:06pm
I didn't get that sense at all. I felt like she was saying that medical interventions are overused, but there is a need in some cases for intervention. She mentions her friend who had the c-section. If a woman is planning on having an intervention-free home birth, then it doesn't make sense to read horror stories about home birthing. Honestly though, I didn't even feel like she was pushing home births in this section-
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different folks will take different things from the chapter (and the book as a whole), true enough. and i respect your opinion, but i don't see how you couldn't feel that she was definitely advocating natural births (if not home births, and if not full-on pushing...no pun intended...). she did talk about how unnecessary medical interventions are overused (and they are), but she spent plenty of paragraphs talking about this "sisterhood" of females, animal and human, who all give birth naturally, and how we should strive to be part of it. and yeah, i agree that women who are planning intervention-free home births shouldn't *focus* on the negative, but i think it's important to be educated about the risks involved. not all women are capable of having home births, and it's irresponsible to tell them to disregard the very true stories of women and/or their babies who have died as a result of a lack of medical intervention. giving birth is a HUGE thing, and an expectant mama should be educated on all aspects; to encourage her to ignore the warning stories is just as bad as telling her to stay away from ina may gaskin's books. i'm not saying folks shouldn't read this book...like i said, i enjoyed it immensely, up until that chapter. but this review is just my opinion. as with everything, mamas should experience it for themselves and form their own opinions. ;)
